Fr]anc[is:So I probably wont be able to play as a green human, a blue human, grey human, or a human with bits of metal taped to their face. I can live with that.

Can anyone tell me what the difference between an operation and a flashpoint is? There's so many silly names for everything, is any of it single player stuff?

It's strange that they are adding a 4th kind of currency. From what little I've seen in the free trial, there's regular money, social points, and commendations. Social points cover the Leia bikini and things like that as far as I know, so why don't they just sell those?

Normal flashpoints is something easy to do with 3 other people to get better gear when you lvling.

Operations is only for 8 or 16 man, lvl 50, and Operations (Story mode, Hard mode, Nightmare mode) are hard, requires attention, tactics and gear.The flow is this, you lvl to 50 then you do hardmode flashpoints (hard modes unlocks after lvl 50 ) to get some gear to bring your char to the point where you will be able to do first operation (EV story mode) then from there you forget about flashpoints and grind OPS. EV then KP then EV and KP hardmodes then EC and only then EC hardmode. To be regular and successful OPS runner you will need a good guild with voice coms.

i might have a go at it now seeing as the f2p seems very single player orientated. i tend to hate end game mmo grinding gear purely so you can grind gear

(including Mr. Bannu himself Stanley Woo, who was in charge of quality assurance lol)

I guess that whole sob story on Mr. Woo's blog a month back, where he went over how he was so "disillusioned" from his job that he did Bioware a favor and left voluntarily, was proven to be a total crock. Why am I not surprised - almost every moderator on the BSN continually lies through their teeth.

I suspect that EA is rushing their F2P model through to:

a) rescue the failing subscriber base/wasted monies on TORb) try to jumpstart some franchises that they already destroyed the first time (Ultima Forever being the prime offender)

In the end, the industry needs to innovate, not plagarize. I have no intention of playing TOR - if I wanted a WoW clone, I'd just go spend my time on WoW. At least I know the support is still there and that there's a ton of extra content. I don't want to play KOTOR 3 kitbashed into an MMO format.

And WoW a bastard shade of its former self crushes yet another pretender.

In all seriousness though as an optimist who tried to like the game and spent 6 months playing it I can say that most of the hate it gets, most of the negative feedback, and most of what is spewed about this game is completely fair. And Bioware has no one to blame but themselves for this catastrophe. EA's shadowy hand is behind a lot with the game, but for it to be this much of an utter disaster (2.2 million copies sold, probably about 750k subscribers and falling) Bioware has to take a good deal of blame as well. They should be embarrassed at the beta of a game they had us playing.

back when they said the free to play option would just be the first 15 levels I wasn't too interested since I've played the trial and that was as far as I was able to get during that so being able to play further actually interests me greatly. Also once it transitions over it may actually give me something to play since I have almost nothing on my radar this fall.

Sorry to little to late TOR is a below average MMO with only one thing even remotely unique to it's name and that's the voice acting and even that has the Bioware problem of reused animations and uncanny faces.

I've been playing TOR since early access, and I have to say, TOR is a VERY good game... as a single player game, as an MMO it falls flat. The heroics are boring, the flashpoints are interesting enough but not worth doing more than once, the Operations aren't even playable until you've already burned yourself out doing the flashpoints on hardmode over and over and over grinding equipment just to be able to do them, which is the reason I have yet to actually do one. However, warzones are pretty intense and hectic, which is the only redeeming part of it.

The mistake Bioware made most of all is that the endgame content was lacking, and when EVERYBODY complained about it, what did they do? They covered their ears and went "lalalalalalalalalala!!! I can't hear you!!! Lalalalalalala!!!" You can't have an successful MMO without countless time sinks built in from the start and not expect to lose lots of people. In addition to the other issues that they never got around to actually fixing.

I've taken my time with the story and haven't tried to blast through everything as fast as possible and thus I'm still I'm only on my second character, which is about a planet or 2 away from being done, which is probably why I still like playing it.

OT: Everybody and their mother expected F2P to happen, and I'm actually pleased to see that it's less restrictive than it could have been. They could have blocked out parts of the story, removed equipment, and so on, but they didn't, and they're being gentle with PvP too, which is fortunate. I personally probably won't ever do much other than the storyline anyway, so I'm happy with this, and if I ever feel like doing everything again I'll just grab a timecard or something.

Notice how all the people who are psyched about this just want to see the story for free and nothing else? EA doesn't. The idea with f2p is to lure players in and keep them playing so they buy your vanity BS, not to let them get to max level with nothing to do so they have no progression left, quit and go back to the other, more popular MMO's. It's really astonishing; They introduced a subscription model to save the game that was dying under the subscription model.

MMOs are dead. The days of pay to play virtual worlds are gone. Welcome to the FaceBook Flash game era. Quick in, quick to max, quick to get out, that is what developers are going for now. All the "Oldschool" MMOs currently in developemnt are doomed to fail unless they change there business model.And who is to blame?Everyone. Devs, Players, companies like blizzard and Sony and EA. We are all to blame because one could not have done it without the other.

Heh, former player, won't be coming back. Why should I? I literally bought this game for the storylines and having played both Empire and Republic you just have to be really invested in X class story and slog about the same planet stories. I dunno I guess a bunch of people will try it out but literally they won't be staying once they hit 50. You throw some cash at the operations and you will get bored, you try the warzones, give it a week and you'll just stop bothering.

SWTOR is most likely the closest thing to a Kotor3 you will ever see so I do suggest playing both empire and republic. If I might suggest, Imperial Agent and Trooper(Only if you act like a complete jerk)

I dunno, I see hints of a great game in it, hell I am pretty sure any player could see how this was originally a single player game in it's storyline(The False Emperor flashpoint) but then you are hit with the reality that instead all you get at 50 even now is Hutt ball or Mindless operations that are not up to snuff.

I am not happy to see this, I am not really sad either, I just feel rather depressed about the whole thing. So much potential for a game thrown away because of inept design, cruddy engine and Ea's unique ability to shoot potential in the head.

Dendio:Woe is me who paid $60 for this eventual free to play title. I have learned my lesson

Capcha: Whole shebangyup..

You'll get some cash shop points and an item currently being voted on for buying the game and paying for subscription. If there's one thing I like about this transition it's that we're not being hung out to dry.

NameIsRobertPaulson:And WoW picks another MMO out of its teeth. Who is next to be devoured by the monstrosity?

Maybe I'm crazy, but I think this has much less to do with WoW achieving some sort of "dominance," and much more to do with ToR just not being very good.

WoW is just a fat, bloated Jabba the Hutt choking on its own flatulence. You can't really give it any credit when a game trying to take its throne trips and falls into the Rancor Pit OF THEIR OWN ACCORD.

Dedthom:MMOs are dead. The days of pay to play virtual worlds are gone. Welcome to the FaceBook Flash game era. Quick in, quick to max, quick to get out, that is what developers are going for now. All the "Oldschool" MMOs currently in developemnt are doomed to fail unless they change there business model.And who is to blame?Everyone. Devs, Players, companies like blizzard and Sony and EA. We are all to blame because one could not have done it without the other.

You open your mouth, and gallons of truth spill out. I think you hit the nail right on the head.

In honor of this, I wanted to give you a medal. Sadly, the only one I have is of a horse butt. May it remind you of the MMO business model:

I'm glad they're finally decided on this. I ended my subscription a few months back, but only because I wasn't in the mood for TOR. I love the game; it's great for RPing in the context of the missions. I've started to want to play it again, but not as long as EA was being wishy-washy about free-to-play.

Also, most of the features that will be limited in the free version have to do with interacting with other people. I am completely okay with this.

I'd been anticipating this, to be honest. After I played a free weekend, I figured this was the sort of game that would soon be going F2P. Like folks have said, it does bear similarities to WoW, which is going to put it at a severe disadvantage to having something WoW doesn't. A different setting helps, but it can only go so far.

Now, as to the F2P vs subscription, I'm generally one to favor the former. Some people say in the long run you pay more, and I can certainly see how. Some of the features some F2P games offer in their cash shops tend to be ridiculously expensive, but that doesn't necessarily mean all F2P games have to operate that way. I do, however, have to question a bit when a game's company makes content (i.e. missions, areas of a map, etc.) only accessible through payment. It depends on how relevant to the overarching storyline of the game world's main events that content is; if it's pretty much an auxiliary sort of mission, like hunting down some infamous criminal or exploring some long-lost base/tomb/city/etc., then that's fine. But if its taking part in some kind of vital battle that's a major turning point in an intergalactic war...that's something players shouldn't be kept out of just 'cause they don't want to shell out $30 or so in the cash shop.

As to the other restrictions, they do make sense. Most F2P games have restrictions on appearances, make some "vanity items" available only through purchase, or do other such things to add convenience to the players willing to pay for it. I would just hope most of those things would be available for one-time-only purchases in the cash shop if you so desire them.

On the other hand, playing through a complete TOR storyline without having to drop $15 a month on it could be the perfect way to hook players who balk at subscription fees but don't mind microtransactions.

And it could be the perfect way to scare away existing players, who don't like to have microtransactions in their games.

I'm relieved that I didn't waste much time on SWTOR. If I had actually liked it this would have been depressing news.

Mike Fang:I'd been anticipating this, to be honest. After I played a free weekend, I figured this was the sort of game that would soon be going F2P. Like folks have said, it does bear similarities to WoW, which is going to put it at a severe disadvantage to having something WoW doesn't. A different setting helps, but it can only go so far.

Now, as to the F2P vs subscription, I'm generally one to favor the former. Some people say in the long run you pay more, and I can certainly see how. Some of the features some F2P games offer in their cash shops tend to be ridiculously expensive, but that doesn't necessarily mean all F2P games have to operate that way. I do, however, have to question a bit when a game's company makes content (i.e. missions, areas of a map, etc.) only accessible through payment. It depends on how relevant to the overarching storyline of the game world's main events that content is; if it's pretty much an auxiliary sort of mission, like hunting down some infamous criminal or exploring some long-lost base/tomb/city/etc., then that's fine. But if its taking part in some kind of vital battle that's a major turning point in an intergalactic war...that's something players shouldn't be kept out of just 'cause they don't want to shell out $30 or so in the cash shop.

As to the other restrictions, they do make sense. Most F2P games have restrictions on appearances, make some "vanity items" available only through purchase, or do other such things to add convenience to the players willing to pay for it. I would just hope most of those things would be available for one-time-only purchases in the cash shop if you so desire them.

One of the major restrictions that makes absolutely no sense is the lack of operations (raids if you're a wow player). As of now there is literally no idea what limited access means for the others, but you absolutely can not play operations if you're free to play. This makes no sense at all. The point of free to play with an option to subscribe is to try and get people to subscribe or at the very least pay a fee to get what subscribers get with their money. To completely block off access to somethin means a free to player wont even have a chance to test the waters to see if its worth spendin 15 bucks a month on.